Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Californians are Ready for Reform

I
seem to remember seeing several polls in the last year indicating that
Californians—unlike their political leaders—have the stomach to undertake
reform of Proposition 13.As most
Californians know, that initiative, passed by voters in 1978, introduced an
undemocratic supermajority requirement, centralised the funding and management
of many functions which had formerly been hashed out by local governments, and
rigidified the income tax system.

The
outcome for the Golden State has been an increasingly inadequate system of
social welfare, declining schools, crisis-ridden universities, and a political
system that only even begins to function if one party holds a supermajority in
the Assembly and Senate—clearly too high a threshold for mere functionality.

This
is a promising development, because it is through the initiative process that
many of our polity’s fabled contradictions are built into government.As is usually the case when considering
political reform in California, it is helpful to turn to Mark Paul and Joe
Mathews’ tract, California Crackup: How
Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It.The authors describe California’s initiative
process as unusually inflexible, and stands almost outside of the rest of state
government in that there is no provision for legislators taking a hand in the
process.

Paul
and Mathews offer six sharp suggestions for reforming the initiative process: “Require
initiatives, as proposed laws and constitutional amendments, to adhereto the same rules as legislation; Establish
higher standards for constitutional amendments that give voters and lawmakers complementary
powers to add or to subtract from the document; Require any initiative that
would impose supermajority voting rules to win the same supermajority of votes
to become law; Require all ballot initiatives and bond measures to live within
the legislative budget; Permit the legislature to enact each initiative or
place a counterproposal next to the initiative on the ballot; Make it easier
for voters to overturn the legislature through a more referendum-based direct
democracy” (California Crackup,
175-181).

Critics
of initiative reform often assume that reformers want to roll back provisions
of direct democracy.But I think that
the simple proposals above would actually enhance the elements of direct
democracy in California’s system.

For
example, it is not very democratic that—as is currently the case—a simple
majority of voters can pass a measure requiring supermajority requirements for
voters on other matters.The
three-question voter proposal-legislative counterproposal-which of the above? formula
suggested by Crackup authors does a
much better job of integrating the elements of direct democracy into the
existing—and important—legislative and executive elements of our system.And modifying the requirements for referenda—as
opposed to initiatives—as Paul and Mathews suggest would allow voters to
intervene more quickly in their political process.

The
key to all of the suggestions in California
Crackup is that what the state needs is sweeping, wholesale reform.Our system is a mess in large measure because
of a century of ill-informed piecemeal tinkering.Piecemeal reform will likely yield more of
the same—after all, the conceit that we are somehow better-intentioned than our
forebears does not ring altogether true.For that reason, Paula and Mathews argue convincingly, when Californians
do get around to reforming our Byzantine political structure, we need to do so
comprehensively.

Polls
indicate that Californians have a greater appetite for reform than our elected
leaders, although part of the reticence of the latter is undoubtedly associated
with a fear that if they tackle such a big project they risk a rebuke from
volatile voters.Our current Governor is
better placed than most because of his long experience and rapport with voters—my
own views of him aside—to tackle this kind of reform, but has shown no interest
in doing so.Perhaps voters must—the pun
is inevitable, I suppose—take the initiative and work to persuade our elected
leaders that California needs rational democratic reform, and that sooner would
be better than later.

If
you’re interested in learning more about some of Crackup authors cogent recommendations for reform of the initiative
process, as well as of our voting system, budgeting, and bottom-up governance,
I’m happy to loan my copy to any neighbours or, as I’m sure the authors would
prefer, you can venture down to your nearest good bookshop.

About Me

I am from Northern California, and am the fifth generation of my family to have lived in the Golden State. Now I live next-door in the Silver State, where I research and write about colonialism and decolonization in Africa, teach European, African, environmental, and colonial history, and write this blog, mostly about politics, sometimes about history, and occasionally about travels or research.